Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hey sports fans!
Well, its all over now. We treked for 3 days and made it to Machu Picchu!
It has been along time since, I´ve been around hot water and a flushing toilets, let alone the internet! So I apologise for keeping thjose who care in suspense about my travels.
After my last post, we were transferred to a rather swank hotel... yes thats right, hotel. No hostel! We checked in and bounced on our beds and ate some things from the mini bar. We had a free day in Lima, until our meeting later that night about the rest of our trip.
So we headed out to have a look around, and headed to the beach. Nothing special really apart from we got savaged by the waves and the rocks and I think Garry busted his ankle! We got back to our hotel and couldn´t find our representative, we found out that we had been sent to the wrong hotel. All was well, we got it sorted out and the next day we were transfered to the right hotel and met our group. It was pretty small, alot of people had dropped out fo some reason. There were two 20year old girls from the States (Jen and Celeste) a guy from New Jersey (James) and a grape farmer from South Africa (Da Wet).
We were taken to the airport to fly to Cusco, one of the American girls was crazy and tried to to take a knife onto the plane*, for god knows what! But once that was sorted out we got on our plane and headed to Cusco, which is 30mins to the east of Lima, kinda. So anyway, we got there and after checking into the hotel, yes another hotel., we all decided to go out for food and a stroll around. Cusco is a beautiful city, it is the oldest continuously inhabitited city in South America, and has a awesome mix of old colonial buildings and Incan walls. It has a huge cathedral and tons of Incan museums that I will hit up when I get back. We had our meeting and met our guide; Silver. Who was the same guide that took David to Machu Picchu a few weeks ago! Keeping it in the family right?
The next day we headed to a town called Ollantaytambo. On the way there we saw some Incan ruins which were situated on the top of a hill that overlooked the city of Cusco. The ruins were called Sacsaywoman (Sexy woman). We stopped off at another other places to have some talks, we stopped at a village and saw how local women made ponco´s, bags and other bits and bobs. The whole thing seemed like a set up and fake. But it was interesting to find out a little about this. We got into Ollantaytambo later that day and checked into our hotel and went to the ruins, they were awesome and just blew your mind at all the planning, geometrey and work that went int building the walls and terreces. The Incans were pretty smart people it turns out. After dinner that evening we went to a bar, which was sweet, it had a firemans pole in the corner that you slid down to order more beer or to use the toilet! We drank alot of beer that night and headed back to the hotel to have one last sleep before we start our trek...
We all woke up the next day feeling amazing, no one was hungover at all!
We were transferred to our starting village of Qeshwarani, were we met a few children and gave them toys and bread. The was the start of our trek. Earlier wen had acquired a few more members for our trip, Mark, James, and Nick.
I was prepared for a hike and maybe abit of hardwork on this trek, but I didn´t imagine it to be this hard! After an hour or two of pretty hard hiking we came to our lunch camp. The porters and cooks carried all of our heavy bags on the backs of horses and raced a head of us to get everything set up for when we arrive. The weather was pretty poor and rained a little, but we were all in high spirits, me and Garry just made idiots of our selves which everyone liked. After lunch we set off again and hiked up anotther mountain which felt near enough vertical! I struggled a little on this, I think it was the fact I was unfit and the altitude kicking me in the balls that I had to stop and get my breath back a few times. But we made it to the top, where we had some amazing views that took your breath away, not that it needed much at 3000m! We stopped and took photo´s then, we could run down this mountain to our campsite. Which looked like one of the best sites we had seen after a long day hiking! We got down to camp in a small village called Cuncani, we ate our dinner and drank some coca leaves then went to sleep at about 8.30pm and slept all the way through till the next day!
Waking up in a tent is usually horrible; wet, smelly and mud everywhere, but none of this mattered when we could see the snow capped mountain, called Coloque-Cruz. After brekkie, we walked up to the other side of the valley and could see the route we had taken down the previous day. It was a good site to see! Today is known as the ´long´day and lasts about 8-10 hours. We head to our first pass at around 4440m Then have lunch. The rain is still here, but its not bad, we all have poncho´s on to keep us dry. The final bit of our hike is tough, and we pass many local children who run up and down the mountains to meet us like it is nothing! There are children who are 6 years old who are running up these mountains in sandals and looking after llama! Crazy! Our next pass is called Ipasayqocha, which is our highest at our 4450m, thats about 14,500 feet! From here we can see our camp, it is a fair way down the trail but it is a good view and puts us all in high spirits. We run down the mountain until we reach camp, we do a little fishing here by the lake and then have some dinner. Then we go to bed!
The last day of the trek is fun, it is all downhill and lasts for about 3 hours. We stop a few hours to meet locals and give gifts. The views are amazing and we can see a hell of alot! Once we are down and back at the bus in a town called Patachana, we say goodbye to our porters who have carried our bgas and looked after the horses, we really couldnt have done any of this without them! Our bus takes us back to Ollantaytambo and we have another shoort tour of the mountains around. Which lasts about 40minutes. After lunch and saying goodbye to the cooks we catch a train to Agua Calientes, which is the town before Machu Picchu. That evening we head to some hot springs and relax a little. Its a good feeling; jumping into hot springs after a 3 day hike! After dinner and a few drinks its bed time, we have got to get up to see Machu Picchu tomorrow!
The bus from Agua Calientes takes us to Machu Picchu and we have a guided tour of it, it is literally breath taking and the weather is perfect for the day. After our tour we have some free time, so Garry, the girls and I head up to a ledge to sit and chat and look out over Machu Picchu. There are too many things to say about it, and I haven´t got time to write them down here. But believe me it was something beautiful. That´s our trek over with. We headed back to Cusco and had a final night out on the town, with the girls. They fly off to Argentina the next day to start studying for 5 months andt a Argentininan University. The are both Spanish Majors and helped us a hell of alot while we were out and about.
We went out and rank alot of danced with the locals, it was good night. Then we headed off to bed. And here I am now. I started writing this damn tings at 9:30am and it is now 11:10am. Yikes.
Well I will fill you in on the rest of the trip. We are going to the Amazon tomorrow! woop woop.
x
*She wasn´t actually crazy, she just forgot to take it out her bag. I thought the story needed more drama.
- comments